[Kransha]

Thrákmazh had a good idea why he had been unable to sleep. He rarely slept, but he had actually tried throughout the length of the previous night.

He had taken, for a time, leave of his own tent, and sought the brisk but chilled breezes outside. He had taken with him, grasped in loosely clutching talons, the Elven blade. He had squatted again in the earth, breathing hard as if he’d been running, and pondered in silent meditation. For all intents and purposes, his plan was going well. Koran and Herding surely were at odds now, ready to slay each other in cold blood. When the armies united reached their goal, the unity would end. In the chaos wrought by the warring Southrons, wicked men of their kind, Thrákmazh would step in easily and rally the remaining men. If one either Cenbryt or Herding survived the possible fray, Thrákmazh could use grounds of disloyalty to slay the survivor, or at least keep him out of the way. Mutiny was still a criminal offense to the Eye, and even if the men would not allow their captain to be killed, they would not be opposed to his deposition in the name of their higher lord, the Dark Lord. All would work itself out in the end.

But, if that was so, why was Thrákmazh plagued thus? He knew why, or at least his logical side did. In his hand he held an Elven blade of Doriath, an heirloom of ancient days and a device used for light and its service alone. Thrákmazh was in the thrall of shadow, not of light, and this blade burned him still. Yet, strangely, he could not cast it aside. The last night, when the pale, icy sphere of the moon drifted gently in its customary arc, Thrákmazh had buried it contemptuously in the ground and tried to stalk back to his tent, but his legs would not carry him. He turned back, dragged by a force unseen, and rushed to the sword, both hands grasping it immediately and yanking it from the earth. He pressed it to him, panting again and harder still until his wobbling legs pushed him up. He now stood and raised the blade, is eyes tracing its narrow length and staring, mesmerized, into it. His dark pupil focused on the gleaming ivory of the sword and the watery reflection in the blade as the moon hit it, filling it with a powerful, brilliant white light.

In the blade he saw a reflection…his reflection, augmented by the withered moonlight. But it was not the reflection of himself he knew, not the orc who he’d thought himself to be. He saw one eye, and the rest of the blade held nothing but darkness, swirling shadow. The watery surface of the sword had been tainted by the horrible, nauseating color which coursed over it. It struck him blind to look upon it, and he turned away, dropping the blade again, feeling as if his stomach would turn and lurch from within him. Then, he fell again, and grabbed the sword, ignoring the reflection in the blade. He could not purge it from his hand, nor could he purge those most vile images from his skull. It burned him and held onto him, unwilling to allow its own release. He clung to it, edging back towards the tent to get away from the glimmering moonlight that shone down radiantly upon him. It was sunlight he despised, sunlight, but the whiter, calmer light from above was filling his lone eye and seemed almost as painful, despite its obvious weakness in comparison.

He had lived a long time, in the years of orcs or in those of men. He had felt some age, only in terms of experience, and had seen many conflicts, many battles. He was an orc who knew what his life was about, unlike so many others. He did not remember how or when he came to be. Perhaps in the first days of orcs and perhaps not, he did not know. He remembered fiery frays, minor skirmishes, and countless struggles between his kind and the forces that he’d learned to call ‘enemies.’ It had always been the mighty Eye he served, though a greater master had existed, a darker and more terrible one, an enemy of the Elves, or at least, had existed in his time. Early on in the time called the Second Age of the Sun, he sun that he so hated with a dank and murderous passion, after the first falling-out of his kind, but he had served his most renowned master gleefully and readily when he first began to taint the good and just lands of Middle-Earth when he came there from the island in the eastern waters, now sunken and devoured by raging oceans. In that time, when the orcs of Sauron drove the men and elves back towards the sea and north, into the darkest corners of the world, surrounded on all sides by shadow, Thrákmazh had first engaged the Elves and lost his eye there. To his later thanks, he was not present at Sauron’s fall, the battles in the south that saw the conquering of the Dark Lord and his troops, for if he had been he would not be present in this dark, decaying forest this very day. He had been north, troops newly under his command left with no option but to flee when a greater army hampered them, the army composed of both men and elves, allied for some common good, to besiege Sauron is his dark hold, cast down the peak of Barad-dûr. That Last Alliance had been too great a force for scattered, meager orcish hosts, so they fled.

After Sauron’s fall, the one-eyed captain of orcs had sought more men in the Misty Mountains, hoping their encircling shrouds that fell over him would shield him from outside eyes. There he was named a hero, titled and decorated with the trappings of a king among orcs, for no other commander in the north had lived past the downfall of Sauron. Hoping to counterattack, but dreading failure, Thrákmazh and the other mountain captains led a motley band of savage urûks to seek out some force they could defeat. They happened luckily upon an unsuspecting train of troops belonging to the victorious enemy, the next King of Men. To their amazement, victory was there’s. At the Battle of the Gladden Fields, miraculous to them and catastrophic to their foes, the enemy of Sauron who’d struck him down, fell at Gladden Fields with his kindred, and Thrákmazh brought the tale of the glorious success back to his own brethren in the mountains. Then, despite the harrowing fire of conquest, they halted their spread and the orcs of all surrounding regions let their numbers dwindle quietly as years passed in rapid succession. The next age, a colder, darker age for all, dragged on until the power of the Dark Lord was reared up again, his tainting hands gouging light and trust from the lands, darkening the light of the Elven Woodlands to make dwellings for his spawn.

That was what Thrákmazh the Mighty remembered of his days in the time before. He did not know many orcs who’d seen these things or done such things as he, such accomplishments as he’d achieved. This was what confused him; this was what drove his mind to further shadow than the blackness that enveloped it already. His thoughts swirled uncontrollably, never letting him determine which was which as they grappled together, a muddled mess of consciousness. If he’d seen so much, lived so long, why could he night hold an Elven blade in his hand? Why could he not think of a single living elf without feeling great aches and pains that stabbed at him, unmerciful and unrelenting? He still did not know, and did not wish to seek the answer. Dragging the blade in the earth and leaving an indented trail in the thick dirt, he had dropped the thing again and, with all the might his limbs possessed, he had staggered back to his tent feebly last night and fallen to the floor of it, wishing as he’d never wished before, for sleep. Then, again possessed from within and without, he thrust himself up, left his tent again, and sought the sword out, grasping it and holding it to his heart.

Now the rays of sunlight, bare and cold despite their shed warmth, crested the tree-covered horizon, peering curiously over the gnarled tips of high branches. Thrakmazh still sat where he had all night, clutching the blade, his one eye tightly closed. But, despite his closed eye, the sunlight still pierced him and he saw it through the thick lid over his watery orb of an eye. The one eye drifted open as he seemed to glide onto his two feet, sliding the Elven blade elegantly into his belt beside his orcish weapon. He looked around at the darkly colored tents, now illuminated by dull golden beams. It was time to seek the greatest prey, the greatest prize, time to do the will of Sauron.

“GET UP, WORMS,” he bellowed, his thunderous voice filling the atmosphere hovering delicately over the army’s camp, “GET UP! THERE’S ELVEN BLOOD TO BE SPILT THIS DAY!”